Toxic ideology from FIRE that grinds my gears

We all want to FIRE. We pop open our 401k’s and just stare. Everyone does it. But I’ve seen a trend with a lot of comments/posts and just want to remind people there’s a world outside FIRE principals and some stuff can be taken too far.

Being overly frugal is mot the only path to FIRE. You can be frugal and smart financially but enjoy your life along the way. Don’t make your wife eat scrambled eggs dinner for 2 months straight, it won’t end well. Trust me. Vacations won’t magically get better once you hit your number. Take time to enjoy and strike a balance before you’re old and disgusting/unhealthy. That hardcore job is not worth your mental health for a few extra bucks. Get the bigger house if it improves your family quality of life. Be smart and pragmatic.

Investing outside of index funds isn’t a crime. This isn’t financial advice but if you like a good smart stock and plan to hold it for a long time, consider it. If you ask older population, direct investing was more common and easily their biggest winners. I’m not saying gamble your money with options or don’t go full blast index funds, but if you liked Apple stock 10 years ago, it wouldn’t have killed you to allocate a tiny portion of small savings to it.

DINK / child free commenters... Listen this has spread like a disease in the community. We do not need to judge but these people will downvote and push / project their choice hard in the FIRE community. If you ask anyone with kids if they would rather retire 25 years earlier and have 10 more Italy vacations or their children 100% of them would work a little longer. I want to be clear there is nothing wrong with not having kids but pretending the FIRE gains here don’t come at a huge cost is insane. Read these comments mentally armed.

Not signing a prenup will not end you financially. Maybe this is true. But your partner is an asset. I see what I consider borderline financial abuse in this sub to have separate incomes, separate bank accounts, the way you redditors split things. The paradox of it is you can have happier marriage and life if you let your guard down a little to be taken advantage of.

I think that’s it for now. Just some stuff that has been bothering me for quite some time about FIRE.